Aidarus al-Zoubaidi Net Worth

Background and career

Aydarus Qassem Abdulaziz al-Zubaydi (born 1967) is a Yemeni politician who has served as the president of the Southern Transitional Council since 2017. He previously served as the vice president of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) from 2022 to 2026 and as the governor of Aden Governorate from 2015 to 2017.

Born in Zubayd, South Yemen, al-Zubaydi served in the South Yemeni Air Force as a second lieutenant from 1988 until 1989. After the unification of Yemen in 1990, he was transferred to Central Security Organization of the Ministry of Interior. Following the outbreak of the Yemeni civil war of 1994, al-Zubaydi fought alongside the breakaway Democratic Republic of Yemen against the northerners. Upon defeat, he fled to Djibouti in 1994, only to return to Yemen in 1996 and lead the Hatham Movement, an insurgent group advocating for South Yemeni separatism.

In 2014, al-Zubaydi announced the establishment of Southern Resistance. He aligned himself with the internationally-recognized government led by President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to fight against the Houthis. Al-Zubaydi's tenure as governor of Aden greatly increased his influence, though his relationship with the central government frayed. Hadi eventually fired al-Zubaydi, which led the latter to form the STC. In 2018, STC captured Aden from the Hadi government. In 2020, under al-Zubaydi's leadership, the STC declared self-rule in southern regions.

In December 2025, the STC launched a large-scale offensive across southern and eastern Yemen, capturing almost half of internationally-recognized Yemen. The STC declared the "state of South Arabia" in January 2026. However, the STC was defeated following a Saudi-led intervention in the same month, after which al-Zubaydi fled into exile in the United Arab Emirates via Somaliland.